All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

But there's not a whole lot of evidence that solving one problem truly lends itself to solving any other of any actual utility.

EDIT:

Downvotes are cool and all, but actual examples?

Offhand, Musk is probably an example. Gates has done good things, as well.

Meanwhile we also have people like Peter Thiel attacking freedom of speech. Or Larry Ellison. Or the Kochs. Or the Murdochs. Or the Waltons.

Not convincing to me if we're talking single digit percentages. I'm swayable, but it's going to require proof.

This is a great example of status quo bias.

You believe that the onus of arguing ethics is on the people who want to change the status quo when really, we should start by thinking about what society ought to look like from first principles. And then you absolutely do have to give arguments for why you want any inequality to exist in the first place, let alone billionaires.[0]

> It's not a shame that there exist billionaires. It's a shame that there exist people with nothing. The former doesn't need fixing; the latter absolutely does.

While I'd agree that the latter problem is more urgent, the former can't be dismissed so easily, either. For one, the existence of billionaires (and upper-range millionaires, really) is pretty antithetical to one of the foundational principles of democracy, which is "one person one vote". It gets even worse when you consider the possibility and practice of inheritance.

And besides, some people might argue that if we didn't have the former problem, it might be easier to tackle the latter -- because when there is less inequality, there tends to be less focus on wasteful jockeying for social status overall, and then people might be more inclined to help those that are below themselves on the social ladder.

[0] There are good arguments in favor of some inequality, but the degree of it is pretty important.

If you take into account the historical development of the world you basically argue for the natural state of affairs. The stronger or more powerful person is generally right and free to do as they please and the weaker have to bring forth good arguments or band together to become stronger to assert there „rights“. This is certainly the way it used to be and often still is but we humans have come up with societal arrangements to change this because we realized it is ineffective - there are simply more fights and less cooperation otherwise.

As you alude to in your last statement you agree that humans have basic rights and there needs should be met. However, regarding the effectiveness of social arrangements, do you really believe a society with a handful of super rich and a broad majority of have nots is going to be effective and cooperative? If you think about the natural state of affairs, who is more powerful, the many or the few? While it’s certainly not easy to organize large groups of people, it‘s possible and happening as seen with Trump and Brexit. These are movements which in my opinion have a strong attitude of „sticking it to the man“ and are a direct consequence of inequality. So I think if you somewhat follow your own logic to the end the billionaires actually have the burden of justifying their wealth to the general populace. Otherwise you would be mixing and matching rights and the natural state of affairs in a way that contradicts your own argument in the first place.

The problem is that billionaires buy politicians, people are too poor to live in western countries despite working, sometimes two jobs, and people with income from work pay for social security and income taxes while billionaires with income from capital gains don't pay relevant taxes and don't pay for social security or their fair amount for health care.

So focusing on billionaires is a distraction. We need to focus that people have meaningful income - especially with the coming AI/robot revolution - and meaningful lives. Capital gains and companies need to be taxed the way people with income from employed work are taxed and need to contribute the same amount to health care and social security.

But this will not happen, because see "buy politicians". There is only one reason that billionaires and celebrities hang around with boring politicians. It's the best investment.